I wrote my story, Conjuring Tricks, in response to a strange picture. We were asked to discard our first and second ideas and go with the third. I really liked this approach. My third idea was for a story about two characters waiting to audition for places in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

The anthology is all set to go, but first there’s a crowdfunding campaign underway. Your chance to support weird stories!

Jonathan Gibbs, author of the novel Randall, a wonderful re-imagining of the world of the Young British Artists in the 1990s, has set up a weekly newsletter which generously offers an opportunity to any of us to draw up a personal anthology of 12 short stories. I jumped straight in and my personal anthology was sent out by Jonathan last week.

I relished the chance to revisit stories which have stuck in my mind since I first read them, some many years ago, others more recently. My chosen stories are:

At Sea, Guy de Maupassant

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Rudyard Kipling

The Luncheon, W. Somerset Maugham

A Child”s Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

Curl up and Dye, Fran Landsman

Ernesto, Juana Adcock

Wires, Jon McGregor

The Semplica Girl Diaries, George Saunders

Tiger Palace, Kirsty Logan

Sound Waves, Lane Ashfeldt

The Cruellne, James Clammer

Two, Joanna Walsh

Read more about my choices here – I also give links to where you can read and/or buy them.

Story snippets

“The phone ringing will wake you in the night. You’ll answer it but there’ll be no-one there. Just a cat miaouing.” From Baby

“I blink and he’s standing there, just for a minute. Glitter lands on my shoes. I blink. He’s gone.” From Clown